SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the don't-like-stuff-you-are-not-supposed-to dept.
Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
A Swiss court has fined a man for “liking” defamatory comments on Facebook, in what is believed to be the first case of its kind.
According to a statement from the Zurich district court, the 45-year-old [un-named] defendant accused an animal rights activist, Erwin Kessler, of racism and antisemitism and hit the “like” button under several comments from third parties about Kessler that were deemed inflammatory.
The comments were made in 2015 during heated discussions on a range of Facebook groups about which animal welfare groups should be permitted to take part in a vegan street festival, the Swiss daily Tages Anzeiger reported.
Kessler sued more than a dozen people who took part in those exchanges, a lawyer for one of the defendants, Amr Abdelaziz, said.
Several people have already been convicted in the case, mainly for comments they made. It appears the man convicted on Monday was the first to be sanctioned merely for “liking” comments made by others.
[...] [The lawyer, Amr Abdelaziz] said the courts needed to urgently clarify whether hitting a like button on social media should be given the same weight as other forms of speech more commonly cited in defamation cases.
“If the courts want to prosecute people for likes on Facebook, we could easily need to triple the number of judges in this country,” he said. “This could also obviously easily become an assault on the freedom of expression.”
Source: The Guardian
(Score: 5, Insightful) by driven on Monday June 05 2017, @04:53AM (4 children)
By clicking the like button, “the defendant clearly endorsed the unseemly content and made it his own,”
Complete rubbish. Just because the link says "like" doesn't mean someone "LIKES" something by clicking on it. Maybe they are indicating that the person was brave enough to express themselves even though they disagree. On soylentnews I sometimes mod up someone as insightful even though I disagree but they bring up a really interesting point.
This verdict should definitely be challenged.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Monday June 05 2017, @06:25AM (2 children)
Moving on, it's interesting that the plaintiff in the case was also a victim of the law in question:
That's one way to get a law changed: troll the internet and get a dozen people fined or jailed as a result.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday June 05 2017, @07:20PM (1 child)
> these "likes" will now cost the person in question about $4000 which is ludicrous for the supposed offense
As usual, the US accepts the challenge, and offers its Ludicrous Champion [aljazeera.com] credentials in return.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 06 2017, @12:09AM
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Monday June 05 2017, @01:14PM
Exactly, I've done the same. I kind of always do because I never fully agree with anyone including myself :P
Sad to see such insanity in Switzerland, I thought better of them (a case of "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence" I suppose).
"Liking" content which you do not agree with is also a cheap way to troll the surveillance and manipulation systems (as well as exercising one's own humanity). Works in "meatspace" too; try to add to their cognitive dissonance/challenge their algorithms once in a while.
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))